St. Bride Foundation, City of London

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St. Bride Foundation, City of London

Postby Toby Dammit » Fri Mar 13, 2009 9:34 pm

Just before the end of last year I managed to land myself a new job, and the building I work in has turned out to absolutely fascinating historically. I work for the Bridewell Theatre, which is just one part of a big Victorian building, the St. Bride Foundation. Indeed I'm at work just now waiting for a show in the theatre to finish. This is a piece I was recently asked to write emphasising the Foundations links to the printing industry, so no space even to mention the Bridewell Palace and Prison which were also on this site once:

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Bride Lane as Dickens would have known it

“It is for the purpose of keeping printers up to date that this St. Bride Foundation Institute is chiefly formed.” wrote one “J.G.” with Victorian precision in his 1895 essay, PRINTING CLASSES, AN ADDRESS TO ALL CONCERNED. Just a few months earlier at the grand opening of the Foundation’s smart, fresh new building on Bride Lane the band of the 3rd London Rifle Volunteers had serenaded the festive crowds and VIP’s with THE BLUE DANUBE.

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Architects drawing of the proposed building

However it was another less azure (and more invisible) river which lent its name to the nearby Street to which the Foundation owed its existence and its location, the Fleet. When Wynkyn de Worde established his printing press near St. Bride’s church and the River around 1500, he stole an advantage over his former master William Caxton who had set up Britain’s first ever press near the seat of government in Westminster. It was to the literate merchants, clerks and clergy in and around the ancient City of London to whom power and wealth was rapidly devolving, which sparked an insatiable hunger for news, information, entertainment and novelty, all of which was fed by the lucrative trade of locally produced mass printed texts and images .

“Fleet Street” quickly became synonymous with newspapers and by the 1880’s the City was dominated by just one industry, printing. In 1890 William Blades died. He was a major figure in the business, biographer of Caxton and collector of unique technical print related material. Coincidentally a board of Governors, many working in or revolving around the world of print were busy establishing a new charitable Foundation in the City, St. Bride’s.

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Bride Lane and the Foundation from Fleet Street c. 1900

The Foundation’s core targets were to prepare new workers for the printing industry both in mind, through formal training and study in a purpose built school and library, and in body through a gymnasium and the City’s first swimming pool. Blade’s peerless legacy was bought by the Foundation intact as the nucleus of its teaching resources. Over the subsequent 115 years this has grown into the vast, fascinating, Borgesian labyrinth forming the Foundation’s current archive of books, journals, photographs, engravings, drawings, manuscripts, printing presses, type sets, wood blocks and miscellany; a collection of International importance.

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Past/present, pool to theatre

The Foundation, once fondly called “the University of Fleet Street” continues though its various wildly popular education, entertainment and conference programmes to promote all aspects of printing. It is a survivor of the Blitz, a living newspaper, its archive a kunstkabinett; in which the word resides, presides, is stored, nurtured, preserved, deconstructed and studied. Wordsmiths Shakespeare, Pepys, Ben Franklin, Lamb, Richardson, Johnson and (of course) Boswell all walked our location’s EC4Y Lane, as did the young Dickens who used to drink in the Cogers Hall at 15 Bride Lane accross the road from us. More recently (and tangibly) Harold Pinter and the Peters Ackroyd and Blake (who has designed his own wonderful ALPHABET) have visited. Blades and Caxton are memorialized in their own rooms in the Foundation and a portrait of Richardson adds to the splendor of the Salisbury room.

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The Salisbury Room

If the Library and its collections are the Foundation’s brain, the Bridewell Theatre is it’s voice, with on average ten shows a weeks staged in what was once the swimming pool. Words read privately are declaimed publicly through works from Aristophanes to Shakespeare, Wilde to Sondheim, together with brand new texts specially commissioned for our vibrant building.

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Pinter in the Bridewell Theatre

As James Mosley wrote in his 1978 article TYPOGRAPHIC TREASURES AT ST. BRIDE’S, just as the stampede by the press to abandon the City for the Isle of Dogs was about to commence - “it seems appropriate that there should still be an institution in the traditional heart of the printing and publishing trades where all aspects of its cultural and technical achievements may be studied.” The Foundation he concluded “may be said to have fulfilled the hopes of its founders”. The St. Bride Foundation is arguably the psychogeographers delight in the City.

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Newspaper design conference in the Bridewell Hall
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Re: St. Bride Foundation, City of London

Postby Toby Dammit » Thu Jun 17, 2010 12:41 am

Was rather ridiculously over excited to see you can spot the top of the street where I work in the 1961 British sci-fi classic, THE DAY THE EARTH CAUGHT FIRE in a couple of shots, and I snapped some comparasions on Saturday, though I can't replicate the widescreen processs I'm afraid.
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St Brides Avenue
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Bride Lane, where St Bride Foundation sits, can be glimpsed at the end of this little Avenue. I've spoke to a few Fleet Street veterans who have all said there was no real "Harry's" bar. The tat filled pub which appears in the film was purely fictional. There is however a real (and very ancient) pub at the end of the lane called The Old Bell.
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Harry's
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Harry's today
The building is now unrecognisable, the back end of a closed down Deli.
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Another view of St Brides Avenue
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St Brides Avenue today

In one scene the two leads, Edward Judd and Leo McKern walk out of St Brides Avenue onto Fleet Street.
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They pause just outside the gates of St Brides church, known as "The Printer's Cathedral".

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At the time of filming this was a newspaper office, today it is another closed down business. Until recently it was a rather pricey tailors.

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And on to Fleet Street
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Daily Express
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There's a fair few shots set up just outside the the Daily Express building, then a working newspaper, today one of the offices of bankers Goldman Sachs (the film features sepia as well as black and white cinematography).

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The leads are joined by Janet Munro

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It opens and closes with the same apocalyptic shot of Fleet Street looking east.

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Obviously I was unable to replicate the sense of sweltering weather as I was shooting these on a British summer's day. However while snapping I was surprised to suddenly find what seemed like thousands of naked people cycling past.

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I asked two very beautiful girls on a tandem who stopped beside me (sadly no picture) what it was for. Apparently to stop the traffic in London.

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London never fails to surprise, on fire or not.
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Re: St. Bride Foundation, City of London

Postby rabmania » Thu Jun 17, 2010 8:38 pm

Nice one Toby. I walked past St Bride's the other day when I was in London for work (I always end up counting how many Wren/Hawksmoor churches I walk past), so your pics really appealed to me. Thanks.
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Re: St. Bride Foundation, City of London

Postby Dot » Mon Jun 21, 2010 10:30 pm

Toby,

I found this link regarding the nude bikers. They have already set date for next year.

http://wiki.worldnakedbikeride.org/wiki/London
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Re: St. Bride Foundation, City of London

Postby Toby Dammit » Tue Jun 29, 2010 9:21 pm

Dot wrote:Toby,
They have already set date for next year.

Yes, I'll have to make a note in my diary. I'll have to be on Ludgate Hill next time where they have to slow down...

Meanwhile back in the Theatre, here's a little video I made during a recent changeover.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1H_NLjvUM8I
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Re: St. Bride Foundation, City of London

Postby Toby Dammit » Wed Jul 21, 2010 4:39 pm

Just for Rabmania here's a pic of St Brides church, taken last Friday afternoon.

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Re: St. Bride Foundation, City of London

Postby rabmania » Wed Jul 21, 2010 9:29 pm

Toby Dammit wrote:Just for Rabmania here's a pic of St Brides church, taken last Friday afternoon.

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Thanks,the original wedding cake TD. Will maybe have some pics of my own next week; have you ever visited St Stephen Walbrook?
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Re: St. Bride Foundation, City of London

Postby Toby Dammit » Sat Jan 12, 2013 9:25 pm

So last year I made a trip up the famous wedding cake tower of St Bride’s church. As you can see from the beautiful weather in the pictures it was at the height of summer.

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View to the west from the top of the tower

The church was once famous for its peal of twelve bells and while this medley can still be heard ringing out after weddings and other special occasions this is in fact a recording. The bells (9 of them remaining at the time) melted in the tower on the night of 29 December 1940 during the heaviest night’s bombing the City of London faced in the war. The fire took hold in the nave, the spire acted as a perfect chimney and the resulting fire could be seen from 40 miles away.

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Bell ringing chamber

After the church was finally restored in the mid 1950’s the structure of the tower was deemed too weak to support so many bells again and now there is just the one “real” one, cast in 1953 in Loughborough by John Taylor and Co.

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Taylor's bell

The Blitz has left its permanent mark however; black patches of carbonized stone still fill the inside of the tower, covering entire sections of wall in places.

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When you climb out and into the “wedding cake”, the multi-tiered sections of the spire, it’s a bit of a shock to discover just how high (226 feet in total) and exposed you suddenly are, climbing a narrow spiral staircase winding up the centre of the tower with no handrail on the external side, just breath- taking and slightly alarming views of the City all around you.

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St Bride Foundation

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South to Tate Modern and the Shard

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North onto Fleet Street and the Daily Express building

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East towards Wren's great masterpiece

I still cannot work out how none of this spiral staircase can be seen from ground level, but there you go. The stairs end just under the small cone pierced with little port holes supporting the obelisk which caps the tower. Wren’s original obelisk was taller by 8 feet, but it was shattered by lighting in 1764, sending chunks of masonry raining onto Bride Lane.

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The re-builders skimped on the material to save money, but the event did stimulate a debate between Benjamin Franklin (living in London at that time) and George III on how best to protect buildings from damage during lightning strikes. Franklin arrived at the correct solution, a pointed and grounded lightning conductor; however not being the King he lost the argument.

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On a rather more up to date note, here's a little film I made about Rebecca Covaciu, a 16 year old Romanian gypsy girl whose work I discovered in Milan back in May. I've curated an exhibition of her work at St Bride Foundation which runs to the end of next month.

http://youtu.be/7FxgslhXCtw
Last edited by Toby Dammit on Sat Jan 12, 2013 10:43 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: St. Bride Foundation, City of London

Postby rabmania » Sat Jan 12, 2013 10:23 pm

Thanks for this Toby, I enjoyed Rebecca's story. I was pleased to have a full ten minutes in St Bride's (first time visitor) the week before Christmas. I was chuffed, and then you show that there's a staircase up the wedding cake...wow!
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Re: St. Bride Foundation, City of London

Postby Toby Dammit » Sat Jan 12, 2013 10:37 pm

rabmania wrote:and then you show that there's a staircase up the wedding cake...wow!


You should have popped into the Foundation. Access to the stairway is of course restricted, I only got up there because our Bar Manager is good friends with a few of the church staff. I was rather surprised though (and pleased) when they just opened the door and let me wander up on my own.

In his book "Lights Out For the Territory" Iain Sinclair remembers the days when the bell tower door was usually unlocked and it was easy to sneak up there, not any more.

Glad to share Rebecca's tale, since organizing the show she's had her first book published, L’arcobaleno di Rebecca (Rebecca's Rainbow). Italian post being such as it is I'm still waiting for my copy.
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Re: St. Bride Foundation, City of London

Postby Toby Dammit » Tue May 27, 2014 5:09 pm

Toby Dammit wrote:On a rather more up to date note, here's a little film I made about Rebecca Covaciu, a 16 year old Romanian gypsy girl whose work I discovered in Milan back in May. I've curated an exhibition of her work at St Bride Foundation which runs to the end of next month.

http://youtu.be/7FxgslhXCtw


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Here's a happy return to an old topic. I was in Italy earlier this month and finally met Rebecca, who had a small solo show in an antique shop in the Brera district of Milan. The first evening we met she gave me a quick burst of Ode To Joy from Beethoven's 9th on the violin she has started learning. As I predicted at the time of the London show I curated, it wouldn't be long before I could no longer afford to buy her work, which proved to be the case. However, she painted a little self portrait on canvas canvas just for me on my last evening in town, with the most moving dedication written on the back. She made nearly 2000 Euros from the show, which to an 18 year old girl living in a squat must seem like a fortune.

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She is still working away at art school, and recently was awarded 6000 Euros in materials in a competition. She is tiny in real life but shimmers with the sheer joy of existence more than anybody else I have ever met, doubly remarkable considering the hardships she has been through (some of which are illustrated in her superb little book, L'arcobaleno di Rebecca).

If the world had more people like Rebecca in it, it would be a far better place.
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Re: St. Bride Foundation, City of London

Postby Lucky Poet » Wed May 28, 2014 1:09 am

Indeed, sir. Indeed.
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